“Most likely Dad’s enlistment in the navy broke them up. When he graduated and left, Mom still had three years of college ahead of her.”
“So then Mom starts dating other people. She meets and falls in love with Russell. After graduation, Mom and Russell marry.”
“Then Dad makes a stop in Camden, where the newlyweds were living. Ostensibly, to recruit. But also, to say hello to his old girlfriend.” Natasha wrinkled her nose. “Why? It seems weird that he’d reach out to an ex-girlfriend after she’s married.”
“Perhaps they remained friends after their breakup?” Genevieve suggested.
“Are you friends with any of your ex-boyfriends?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“That doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have gone down that way for Mom and Dad,” Genevieve said.
Natasha chewed the side of her bottom lip.
A shiver of premonition ran between Genevieve’s shoulder blades, because she knew what her sister was about to say before she said it.
“What if Mom and Dad still had a thing for each other?” Natasha asked. “What if Mom cheated on Russell with Dad that weekend?”
The possibility jangled.
“The person who wrote the letter said that Mom and Dad weren’t going to ‘get away with it,’” Natasha continued. “What if someone saw them kiss? Or found them in bed together?”
“On the weekend of Mom’s husband’s murder?”
“That would have been scandalous enough to motivate someone to write a letter.”
“Yes,” Genevieve said. “But I just can’t believe that Mom would have cheated on Russell or that Dad would have participated in that, either.” A marital affair didn’t square with her parents’ character. “Mom and Russell looked incredibly happy in their wedding announcement photo.”
“Okay, so, what other scandalous thing could Mom and Dad have done?” Natasha asked.
In the silence, the dishwasher chugged.
“I don’t know,” Genevieve said.
The back door banged. Half a second later, Millie spilled into the room. “Daddy says it’s time to put on my costume!”
The Fellowship Hall at The Vine Church hadn’t been constructed with the type of sound-dampening materials needed to handle the din generated by a hundred children and their entourages.Especially when those children were enjoying their first round of overstimulation and candy right before their second round of overstimulation and candy.
Genevieve and Natasha’s family had arrived thirty minutes ago for the Light the Night event at Natasha’s church. They’d meet up with their parents shortly, then take the kids out trick-or-treating, which, blessedly, would be quieter. A volcanic explosion would be quieter.
“What a darling little Spider-Man,” the lady at the Go Fish station said to Genevieve. She handed Owen a makeshift fishing pole with a clothespin dangling from the end of its line. He tossed the line over the partition painted to resemble the ocean.
“He looks just like you, Mama,” the woman told Genevieve.
“Thank you, but I’m not his mommy. I’m his aunt.” His unmarried, childless aunt.
“What a good auntie you are,” she said. Then, to Owen, “Move your fishing pole around to see if you catch anything.”
Genevieve glanced down the length of the large space at the kaleidoscope of activity—
And spotted Sam.
A dazzled stillness fell over her as memories of yesterday’s kiss replayed in her imagination.
As if she’d called out to him, he looked up.
